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Cadence of Myopathy
You can never step in the same river twice - (Heraclitus).
In the process of developing systems, it's often a battle to achieve a stable state. In order for the system to evolve, changes must be introduced, and by there very introduction destabilize the system. For all systems, even empires, there is the rise and fall cycle to which they are subject. No part or effort of thought or will can so thoroughly isolate any one framework such that it remains impervious to the changes that broil around it.
Why of course even create systems, if in the end they will...
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Wait, I said what?
I have been told, many a time, that I may not be perfect, at least when it comes to remembering things that I am told. This disconcerting truth is provable in that I am often told a date or time when I need to be somewhere or do something, and just as often I forget where I am supposed to go, or what I am supposed to do.
As frighting as my own imperfection, I am fairly certain that I am not alone in my foible. It is likely, that you too suffer from...
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Banking on it
Three things occur at once when the words "I think" are uttered at the beginning of a postulation. First 50% of ears close completely, 25% close a somewhat, and 25% remain at their usual condition of indifference.
Before we get there, here are some things I'd like to cover. First let's grab context from my last post. In this post I want to cover only the basic ideas that I think I can pull from the bank/balance book model, and then using those ideas, put forth a proposal to solve my concurrency problem.
Why asynchronous...
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He Said She Said
Fudge is a confounding substance. It like many hybrid confections, borrows its properties from its constituents in a less than intuitive manner, amalgamating both the varied flavors and textures into an even more insidious concoction. I don't like confectioner's sugar, I can't say I'm a fan of cakes, and while I won't turn my nose up at chocolate, I don't fiend for it. Given that, one should be able to assume that I don't like fudge, and in fact, I don't. But not for any reason related to my dislikes of its majority parts....
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The Transitive Property
In the ancient days of high school proficiency exams, I found myself humbled. It was shown to me in starkly clear terms that I had no natural aptitude for the art of creating written instructions. I tried and failed many times to give passable directions to cover the ~500 yards from the high school to my parents' house. Granted I have no idea upon what criteria my instructions were being judge, only that they were deemed inadequate.
This was a hard pill for me to swallow. Until that point I hadn't failed at anything I'd tried to...
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Code Complete
One of my early comportment report cards listed the following incongruous attributes; good learner, apt to attempt new things, poor handwriting, easily distracted and unsatisfactory follow through. My first review from a job that mattered to me had the following similar outlook; quick to adopt new technologies, strong design intuition, and poor follow-through.
Needless to say I'm at the very least, uneasy about my abilities when it comes to assessing the completeness of my work. Oddly I don't obsess over some qualifiable measure of the code's actual completeness rather its perception of completeness. To a "T" those reviews nailed my...
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Designing for Fictional Requirements
Or building a fondue set to make a grill cheese.
Encapsulation is a high art, when manifested; it is the crystalline marriage of tight self propellant function with duct tape like adaptable applicability and its full force of social inappropriateness. Patterns are fictional accounts of prismatic light dances that titillate the uninitiated to frothy heights in their pursuit. Application layers are despots that unscrupulously bind their subjects to untenable causeways. Or everything isn't as rosy as it is in the shiny bright pages of a text book.
Like many have before me, I recently found myself once...